Nine-year-old Meena can't wait to grow up and break free from her parents. But, as the daughter of the only Punjabi family in the mining village of Tollington, her struggle for independence is different from most.

Meera Syal is a writer, actress, playwright, comic and novelist. She wrote the screenplays for the films Bhaji on the Beach and the multi-award-winning My Sister Wife. Her TV work includes three BBC hit series, The Real McCoy, The Kumars at No. 42 and Goodness Gracious Me. She scripted the musical Bombay Dreams, which opened in London in 2002. Anita and Me, her first novel, won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize. Her second novel, Life Isn't All Ha-Ha, Hee-Hee, was published in 1999.